With EoE, Allergies, Asthma and a G-Tube

It’s March already! How is that even possible? The days have been flying by. We don’t seem to make it through a week with out seeing a doctor of some sort.

Charlie just finished up his last week of physical therapy for his shoulders. The physical therapist that examined him has connective tissue disorder. She knew exactly what I was talking about when I brought up Ehlors Danlos. She did some flexibility measures on him and said no doubt he has some form of it. The biggest red flag being his shoulders sliding out of place. So now we’re armed with home exercises to continue to strengthen his shoulders up. He’s heading into baseball season now and we hope they stay in place for the whole season. I imagine we’ll be back to the PT department in the future as his hips are just starting to slide out as well.

Gage gave us a nice scare a few weeks ago. He came to me and told me his shoulder blade hurt. He was throwing a ball around and I told him I doubt it hurts very much. I felt and poked around a bit to see if there were any bruises. Then I felt a very hard, nonmoving, lump right on his shoulder blade. So off to the doctor we went the next day. The doctor told me there is a definite bump there but he wasn’t too concerned. He said it’s where the muscle and tendon attach to the bone. Because of his rate of growth the bone is over compensating and forming this lump. We are keeping an eye on it and checking it every couple of weeks to watch for growth. We’ll go back to the doctor if we see rapid growth or for a 6 month check up on it, which ever comes first. On a good note he’s gained the 6lbs back he lost! We were having some struggles with hooking up to his feeding tube, he only wanted to eat food. I think letting him see that he wasn’t getting the right nutrition and weight loss helped him to be able to understand just how important that feeding tube is. Also this month Gage’s archery team made it to state finals. Lucky me, I was nominated to be the parent who got to ride along on the 4 hour bus ride. Lucky Gage, he got to ride the bus with his friends and stay safe! Up next, baseball season.

Miss Tinleigh is loving school more that a kid should. Which is a good thing. She’s definitely thriving there. We had her long vision therapy appointment for evaluation on how much and what they will do to help strengthen her eyes and keep them from turning outward. When I had her at her 6 yr old check up the nurse and I both noticed her good eye was turning out as well. She is officially diagnosed with intermittent exotropia and oculomotor dysfunction. Tinleigh is having a rough time with all the colds and viruses right now. I expected her to have a rough year with all the new germs since she’s never been around a lot of other people. She also seems to be having more and more incidents in the evening when we cook dinner. I’ve watched her react to beef, pork and chicken now. Cooked dairy is still very bad for her as well. She now tells us her throat is tight and she becomes more and more stuffy along with coughing and watery eyes. I had started her allergy meds and qvar inhaler a month ago in hopes of building up her system so we could try getting her into the school lunch room towards the end of the school year. That way she may not have to sit in the nurses office during lunch while she’s in the 1st grade. If dinner time at home is going badly I worry so will school lunch. Her ankles have started giving her troubles again just as softball season starts. Time to get back into some at home physical therapy!

Layton is 4! I hate how fast the time is flying by. We had her 6 month check up for her toe walking and orthodics. Though she is staying flat about 80% of the time when she’s barefoot, we now have to work on her ankels. They’re not as strong as they should be because the muscle that runs down the front of the lower leg isn’t strong because of the toe walking. So now her ankles turn inward. We’re awaiting orthodics to call for something new for her. Layton has also been telling me daily she feels like she’s going to puke or she feels like she has guacamole in her throat. This began back in November and is slowly been getting worse. She has eczema down her torso, around her elbows and upper thighs. She’s also been having some bowel issues. We’re trying to clear that out and hoping that’s the cause of nauseousness. Her little cousin Ellie with EoE also has these issues.

Just to touch on Nathan a bit, he’s been in the emergency room. The doctor has discovered he has diverticulitis with a possible addition of Crohn’s disease / IBS. As we learn more about that and how to adjust his already limited diet I fear he faces a feeding tube down the road as well. We pray for now though we can get things under control. He has had 2 bouts of diverticulitis in 1 month already so we need to get things figured out quickly.

On a good note we got the kids into Cincinnati Childrens eosinophilic esophagitis clinic in Ohio. We head there the end of April. The bad thing is they only take 2 new patients a week so that means two trips. After that they will see them all at once if needed. We’re very excited. It’s four days of appointments. First day is scope day. Second day is bone density scan, which they’ve never had, along with behavior medicine. Third day is a tour of their research lab and we meet with the allergist. I’m really hoping to get some better answers for Tinleigh from the allergist while were there. I’ve requested someone that specializes in mast cell and asked for a certain test to be ran on her. They will also be evaluated for connective tissue disorder. The last day we meet back with the GI doctor, find out the results of the scopes and get a game plan together. We may also meet with nutrition.

Why are we going to Cincinnati? We live in between Denver and Cinci where the top researchers are located. Having family in Ohio that can help us out when we travel just made more sense. Cincinnati does have access to trial drugs which we may be interested in trying down the road. We also want to help with their research in what ever way we can to hurry up and cure all kids with eosinophilic diseases.

The most exciting part about us going to Cincinnati is the phone call I received from Wings of Hope telling me that they would help fly us to and from Ohio for our doctor appointments. Wings of Hope is an aviation nonprofit organization which helps communities worldwide become more self-sufficient through improved health, education, economic opportunity, and food security. It was founded in 1962 in St. Louis, Missouri, and currently conducts operations in 11 countries, including the United States. The organization was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 and 2012, holds a 4-Star rating on Charity Navigator and is a GuideStar Gold Participant. In 2015, 92.3% of the organization’s budget was spent on its program services. We are so beyond lucky that they can help us with our travels. If not then we’re looking at a 10 hour drive one way, plus stops. Things are definitely falling into place as we make the change to new GI doctors. I am still sort of shocked that Wings of Hope will be able help us with our travels.

Our family

I’m the average stay at home super mom. Run the daily grind of raising two boys and two girls.

I love coffee, dancing, painting and teaching my children how to grow into the best people they can be.

All three of my oldest kids and my husband have Eosinophilic Esophagitis, multiple food and environmental allergies and the kids all have asthma. Our youngest does not have EoE but does have some strong environmental allergies and chronic urticaria. More recently the boys were also diagnosed with Elhers Danlos type 3.

Dealing with these issues daily is hard but we still LIVE life to the fullest. Nothing holds us back. We play sports, visit animal farms, go out to eat on occasion and travel. We LIVE!

I have started this blog in hopes of helping other families dealing with these issues to see the brighter side of life. Let them see they are not the only ones. By sharing how we LIVE and handle certain situations we hope others will be inspired to try to do the same.